New report: Davis-Besse nuke plant might have been days away from disaster

A new report prepared for FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron says that a corrosion hole found in a Davis-Besse nuclear plant reactor lid in 2002 had developed much faster than previously believed and could not have been predicted. The company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had concluded cracks that led to the hole had taken six to eight years to develop and the lid could have blown open in as little as 60 days had it not been found.

The NRC did not predict whether the reactor's containment building could have kept radioactive steam from escaping into the environment, but critics said the safety systems were compromised by lack of maintenance and would have failed.

Mark Duncan / Associated PressDavis-Besse (2003 photo)

A summary of the study, done in preparation for an insurance claim, says that "The size and extent of the wastage cavity at CRDM Nozzle 3 was totally unexpected and unpredictable, and was much larger than any of the 'worst case' scenarios analyzed by industry experts in the decade prior to 2002."

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Lakewood Democrat, says the report calls into question FirstEnergy's competence to run a nuclear power plant. "Either FirstEnergy incompetently managed the plant and allowed a leak to corrode the reactor vessel over many years, or FirstEnergy incompetently reported the root cause of the near meltdown to the NRC. Either way, they are incompetent: regulators should revoke their license," Kucinich said in a news release.

A FirstEnergy photo of the hole in the Davis-Besse reactor's 6.5-inch-thick carbon steel reactor lid. (Click for full size)

The study, by Exponent Failure Analysis Association and Altran Solutions Corp., finds that the hole developed much faster than previously believed: "We have concluded that the large wastage cavity found during the 13RFO [13th refueling outage] inspection in March 2002 at Nozzle 3 could have formed in as little as a few weeks in the extreme of complete fluid jet cutting of the head."

FirstEnergy has submitted the study to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has asked the utility to explain any differences between it and FirstEnergy's previous reports on Davis-Besse. (Get the NRC letter here: Download file)

More about Davis-Besse

The Plain Dealer covered the Davis-Besse nuclear plant's problems extensively. In this Sept. 21, 2004, story, reporters John Mangels and John Funk summed up the situation:

It's the kind of Top Five list you don't want to be on -- nuclear near misses. And Davis-Besse has now made it twice.

The gaping rust hole found in 2002 in the lid of the Northwest Ohio reactor was the fifth-most dangerous situation at an American nuclear plant in the last quarter century, according to a new government analysis.

In a report issued Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put the odds of a core meltdown of some kind at the FirstEnergy Corp. facility during the year before the rust hole's discovery at 6 in 1,000.

That's about the same chance of winning the Ohio Lottery's twice-daily Pick 3 wheel bet.

"It's the lottery from hell," said U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, who has pressed for reforms at the NRC and has been a harsh critic of FirstEnergy.

"You don't have to go to Thistledown every day to understand what those odds mean," he said.

A Davis-Besse near miss in 1985 ranked at No. 2 in significance, just behind the infamous partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three-Mile Island in 1979.

In the months leading to the accidental discovery of the rust hole, Davis-Besse was 100 times more likely to have a core-damaging nuclear accident than had it been well-maintained, according to the report.

The NRC's long-delayed analysis stopped short of predicting what would have happened after the core began to melt -- whether operators would have regained control or whether the accident would have progressed to a full meltdown and released radioactivity to the environment.

"There would actually be multiple ways in which it could progress," said Gary DeMoss, one of the NRC staffers who participated in the analysis. "Those are outside of the scope."

DeMoss said analysts had no reason to believe that Davis-Besse's sturdy concrete containment dome would not have held, since containment buildings are designed to withstand core-damaging accidents.

However, at Davis- Besse, many of the emergency safety systems were compromised, either because of poor maintenance or inadequacies in original design.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 5) - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) released the following statement after an independent report found corrosion of the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor located in Northern Ohio happened at a faster rate, bringing the reactor closer to a catastrophic incident than was first reported.

"The report findings really raise the question about FirstEnergy's competence to be licensed to operate a nuclear power plant," Kucinich said.

"Either FirstEnergy incompetently managed the plant and allowed a leak to corrode the reactor vessel over many years, or FirstEnergy incompetently reported the root cause of the near meltdown to the NRC. Either way, they are incompetent: regulators should revoke their license.
Exponent was tasked with analyzing the data from the 2002 catastrophe at Davis-Besse because of arbitration between FirstEnergy and its insurance company. According to its Web site, Exponent is an engineering and scientific consulting firm that specializes in disasters and accidents.

On March 9, 2007, Kucinich sent a letter to the Administrator of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission demanding that the NRC deny FirstEnergy the ability to bypass special safety requirements, which the NRC mandated after a near meltdown at the Davis-Besse facility in Northern Ohio. On March 12, 2007, the NRC announced that FirstEnergy would continue to adhere to its special safety requirements.

The NRC imposed a requirement of independent assessments on FirstEnergy after FirstEnergy's mismanagement and efforts to evade its detection nearly resulted in a disaster at the Davis-Besse nuclear facility near Cleveland, when in February 2002, a football-sized crater was found in the reactor vessel.

The NRC later reported that the plant might have been as close as 60 days to bursting the slim steel liner that stood in the way of radioactive release into the air.

The Government Accountability Office has called the near disastrous event at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, 'the most serious safety issue confronting the nation's commercial nuclear power industry since Three Mile Island.'

"This report not only raises questions about the competency of FirstEnergy but also about the accuracy of its original assessment.

"For five years I have fought to ensure the Davis-Besse plant is safe to the residents of Northern Ohio. This report confirms what I have been saying all along: the case of the Davis-Besse facility illustrates both the need for tighter regulation and for more oversight over the NRC and the entire nuclear industry."

Kucinich will host a news conference tomorrow, April 6, 2007, in Lakewood, Ohio, at 11 a.m. The news conference will be at 14400 Detroit Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio, 44107.

Kucinich plans on outlining a series of measures which he will take as Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has archived NRC interviews of FirstEnergy managers and staff about Davis-Besse here.

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